Announcement of contractor to remove old Kapooka Bridge

30 May 2017

Member for Wagga Wagga, Daryl Maguire has announced the successful contractor for the removal of the old Kapooka Bridge, south of Wagga Wagga.

Mr. Maguire said Roads and Maritime Services called for tenders earlier this year to remove the old Kapooka Bridge as the final stage of the $55 million Kapooka Bridge upgrade project, jointly funded by the Australian and NSW governments.

“The new Kapooka Bridge opened in June last year on a new alignment along the Olympic Highway, a few hundred metres away from the old bridge, as part of the Bridges for the Bush program,” Mr. Maguire said.

“Work to remove the old bridge is expected to start in August this year.

“Bridge and Civil Pty Ltd, of Armidale, was selected for the removal work in a competitive tender process for which three responses were received by Roads and Maritime.”

The old bridge will be removed as it is now redundant and not used. The removal will also help with the announced Inland Rail project.

Mr. Maguire said the new bridge offers significant road safety benefits and improvements to freight efficiency on what was the only remaining load-constrained bridge on the Olympic Highway.

“The new four-lane Kapooka Bridge is a taller, wider and longer structure and vehicles using the bridge do not need to travel along a dangerous dog leg on the approaches,” Mr. Maguire said.

“Close to 1.5 million vehicles use the Kapooka Bridge each year and about 215,000 are freight trucks.

“Higher productivity trucks will now be able to travel from Albury up to Queensland via the Olympic Highway, Goldfields Way and Newell Highway, reducing the number of smaller truck trips required on regional roads.”